Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear.
I am an Ontario-based carrier, and my company has operated in this industry for over 40 years, with a strong focus on safety and compliance. I'm here because what is happening in the trucking industry is no longer just a business problem. It has become a public safety issue and a fair competition issue.
The crisis has outgrown provincial tools alone and now requires increased federal collaboration. I will highlight several key issues that I am concerned about.
The first is driver licensing and training. From an operational standpoint, we see this during driver evaluations. Drivers arrive with valid commercial licences and several years in the industry, yet their skill level is often far below what it should be. We are not talking about new drivers. We are talking about drivers with years of experience who still struggle with basic tasks. Whether this results from fraud, weak oversight or poor training quality, the outcome is the same: People are entering the industry with credentials that do not match their actual competency. In private discussions with drivers, it is common to hear that licences can be obtained through informal networks instead of through proper training and testing. This points to a broken system of training and licensing.
The second is driver misclassification. Misclassification has not disappeared. It has adapted. It is evolving. My recruiting department continues to report that many drivers are still actively seeking arrangements that avoid normal employment obligations. Some carriers continue to structure work in ways that disguise true employment relationships. Enforcement pressure has changed the form but not the behaviour. ESDC must adapt its enforcement.
The third is insurance loopholes. Facility insurance was created decades ago as a last-resort mechanism, not as a standing operating model for trucking fleets. Today, some carriers use it strategically to avoid normal underwriting standards. This allows unsafe or non-compliant carriers to remain in business at artificially low costs. While insurance regulation is primarily provincial, the abuse of facility insurance through misrepresentation and under-reporting should raise federal concerns related to fraud, labour compliance, highway safety and cross-border trade.
The fourth is weak business-level enforcement. Enforcement remains heavily focused on roadside checks while business-level non-compliance continues largely undetected. Federal systems dealing with taxation, employment and business registration are not well aligned with transportation oversight. This includes things ranging from illegal truck yards to abuse of DriveON safety certification processes, business models that appear compliant on paper but not in practice and frequent changes in corporate identity to avoid regulatory scrutiny. These are not separate problems. They are connected. They point to one conclusion: lack of agency coordination and oversight.
In closing, this committee has an opportunity to restore order to an industry that is essential to Canada's economy. We are not asking for protection from competition. We're asking for fair competition, for enforcement of existing laws and for collaboration in an area that has outgrown provincial tools alone.
Thank you.